Fossil Fuel Subsidies

Have you ever wondered what government benefits the fossil fuel industry enjoys? Here is a comprehensive breakdown: Fossil Fuel Subsidies.

Spread the Word

Klassy Evans and Adam Khan, editors of this web site and authors of the book Fill Your Tank With Freedom, would love to talk to your group about fuel competition. Print out this PDF document to bring to your group's program director: Saving Lady Liberty. It prints best if you download the file to your computer and then print it.

Sunday, July 3, 2011

At bottom, the entire food-versus-fuel argument boils down to a Malthusian conceit — that there is only so much that can be grown, so if we grow more of one thing we must necessarily grow less of something else. But this is simply false. Agriculture is not a zero-sum game.

There are roughly 2,250 million acres of land in the continental United States. About 1,600 million of those acres are arable. Roughly half of that land (800 million acres) is farmland, but only about a third of that (280 million acres) is actually being cultivated. Only about 85 million of those farm acres are presently growing corn, and just a fifth of that land — about 17 million acres — is growing corn that becomes ethanol.

In short, there is plenty of farmland in the United States that could be used to grow more corn — or more of the other staple crops needed to meet domestic or international demand. Even more important, agricultural technology is constantly advancing. US corn yields per acre have risen 17 percent since 2002, and the state of Iowa alone today produces more corn than the entire nation did in the 1940s.

Applied globally, such improved techniques can multiply world agricultural yields many times. In fact, they have risen by a factor of six since 1930 — which is why, even though the world's population has tripled since that time, there is a lot more food for everyone today.